pan cameramen to Booing 727 and DC-8 on runway, shots both planes, airport terminal, crowd in departure lobby (with all flights cancelled), released passengers onto buses and away, planes on runway (cannot see hostage captured), passengers in airport hotel, news interview with three passengers.




Initials ends/rgh/vs


UNCUT
EDITORS: Please check news agency reports for later details.

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Background: Police lying in ambush at Tokyo airport tonight (Monday) thwarted a lone gunman who seized a Japanese domestic airliner with bomb threats to demand two-million dollars ransom and a flight to Cuba.

The hijacker took over a Japan Airlines Boeing 727, with 119 passengers and six crew, shortly after take-off from Tokyo airport this morning for southern Japan.

The eight-hour drama ended when the gunman, identified by police as 42-year-old Henry Wong of San Francisco, was overpowered as he transferred to a second aircraft with three bound hostages for the planned flight to Cuba.

All passengers and crew of the domestic airliner were held aboard for hours in the middle of Tokyo airport while a DC-8 was prepared for the trans-pacific flight and the money placed on board.

Late in the afternoon, all passengers and hostesses were released and were taken to safety in the terminal by buses.

Later the hijacker emerged holding a gun at his three hostages -- the crew of the Boeing 727. But five policemen waiting in ambush jumped on Wong as he entered the DC-8. One hostage knocked the gun from the hijacker's hand.

Today's was the third aerial hijacking in Japan and the second to fail.